A SENIOR US General revealed “hundreds of Russian mercenaries” were killed during a surprise attack on an oil refinery controlled by Donald Trump's forces in Syria.

US Army Brigadier General Jonathan Braga, director of operations for the main US military task force in charge of operations in Iraq and Syria, feared retaliation could lead to World War 3 and claimed the attack occurred on the night of February 7.

He said: “We saw vehicle movements, troop movements, rehearsals and alike, something we had not seen before.

“I called my Russian contact. We deconflict with the Russians to make sure there are no miscalculations and de-escalate anything that might be happening.

“About two hours later we started receiving artillery rounds followed by tank direct fire and then eventually small arms fire from upwards of several hundreds of forces.

The United States, France and Britain have launched military strikes in Syria to punish President Bashar Assad for an apparent chemical attack against civilians and to deter him from doing it again.

“Nothing at all, I’m not even talking about shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that. They tore us to pieces, put us through hell.

“We got our f***ing asses beat rough, the Yankees made their point.

“What were they hoping for, that the Yankees are just going to f*** off?

“It’s bull****, some people can’t even be f***ing ID’ed, too many people there.”

The US General was asked if he was worried that the conflict could have escalated into a real war, he said: “Absolutely concerned and that's why, again, I had a professional dialogue with our Russian counterparts throughout the night.”

A Russian foreign ministry report said: “Russian service members did not take part in any capacity, and Russian military equipment was not used.”